yes, it could be 2024

I’ve been dialoguing with DSA’ers to get onboard. One of them wrote: “If the Green Party ever grew enough to be a credible threat to the Democratic Party by representing a significant portion of the electorate, it would throw an election to the Republicans; everyone would blame the Greens for the ascendant Republican presidency and they would lose all the gains they just made. The pattern is clear from the ‘spoiler factor’ elections of 2000 and 2016. The Greens lost most of their voters in the next election both times. Compare 2000 (Nader, 2.7%) to 2004 (Cobb, 0.1%) and 2016 (Stein, 1.1%) to 2020 (Hawkins, 0.3%).”

my response:

There is another way of interpreting those figures: The Greens do better when a Democratic administration has been in office (2000 followed the Bill Clinton presidency; 2016 followed the Barack Obama presidency) and worse when a Republican administration has been in office (2004 followed four years of George Bush; 2020 followed four years of Donald Trump).

I think it’s simple to understand:

When a Republican administration has been in office, progressives tend to think of the Democrats as being “the alternative” in the next electoral cycle. And, disgusted with Republican policies, progressives are highly motivated to get out and vote.

When a Democratic administration has been in office, some progressives can be more amenable to thinking of the Greens as the alternative. The tangible policies and priorities of the Democrats are front and center at that time; disappointment and dissatisfaction with those policies and priories is relatively high. The Greens-as-alternative vote goes up.

That dynamic figures to be especially pronounced in 2024. Joe Biden and his administration have been especially uninspiring. With the Green campaign starting so early and being headed by a lightning rod of a candidate, the 5% goal could be within reach. It would catapult the status of the Green Party.

I wrote above in this thread: “Do you really think a hundred years from now the populace will still be suffering with ‘only two significant choices’?? All signs are that the electorate is increasingly disgusted with the duopoly. We can’t know in advance which year will, in retrospect, become viewed as the watershed … after which a third choice (or two or three) will start to be taken seriously.”

If not 2024, one could imagine the scenario some year. If Ross Perot had been more politically savvy the year could have been 1992. Perot was actually leading in the polls in May of 1991. He got almost 20% of the vote in November of 1992. He and his circle conceivably could have built up the Reform Party into a viable third party option going forward.

If the debacle of Florida didn’t play out the way it did in 2000 (where Jeb Bush threw the election to his brother, George Bush … what a scandal!) Nader might have focused on fostering the development of the Green Party back then. In 2000 dissatisfaction with the Democrats was high after eight years of Bill Clinton. As of November of that year there was a strong dynamic toward what we would now call #GreenEnter. If Gore had become president there would have been very little vilification of Ralph Nader (instead of very much vilification, after which half the Greens got cold feet about the relationship). Rather, there would have been interest in the potential of the Green Party. Nader might have considered that the building up of the GP — in order to open up the US electoral system — could become his historic legacy. (He wrote published articles about such when he was an undergraduate at Princeton University during the 1950s!).

One year a perfect storm will result in an alternative party breakthrough. Yes, it could be 2024. A weak Democratic Party candidate. A strong Green Party candidate. An electorate alienated from both of the dreary establishment parties. This scenario has more potential than that of Ross Perot because the Greens are already a familiar presence on the ballot. If they get 5% it will be a major elevation in status for a party already viewed as an enduring alternative option. DSA’ers could help foster a breakthrough.